Embedded Multimedia Card memories (“eMMC”) are increasingly ubiquitous in devices, and especially portable devices. Specifically, eMMC devices are increasingly being used as primary boot and/or memory devices due to their robust and portable nature, as compared to hard drive devices with their moving parts and size being difficult to incorporate into increasingly thin and small portable devices. However, the MultiLevelCell Nand Flash eMMCs have a limited write capability, failing after as few as 3000 block write/erase cycles thereto. To address this, the life of an eMMC can be extended by utilizing it in an enhanced mode, with only half of the storage capacity of the eMMC device, for example by partitioning the eMMC in pseudo-SLC (“single-level cell”) mode. In other words, a processor accessing the eMMC has access to only half the storage capacity of the eMMC and considering the cost of an eMMC, this can be an expensive alternative. Furthermore, current application processors used in mobile devices generally have high speed interfaces pre-assigned for certain functionality; and/or if they have a general purpose unassigned interface, one is generally of a same host type and it can be very difficult to interconnect two mobile Application processors through a high throughput digital interconnect.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.